Blogwatch: Lamb Porn, South of the Border Sammies, Extra Hour of SleepDrink This Weekend?

Posted Oct. 29 at 9:06 am by Maggie Savarino

*Burp* - Lorna Yee of The Cookbook Chronicles will have you burping up lamb just reading her post about last weekend's Lamb Jam at the Bell Harbor. It was an event organized by the American Lamb Board where top restaurants put forth their best plate. It's recommended reading for holiday inspiration.

It's different. It's Bunk. - One of the best personal food blogs around, The Culinary Addict reviews Bunk Sandwiches in Portland this week. Seattleites are buzzing about this place as a must stop when visiting PDX, here's the why.

Do you think you can drink?... An extra hour on Halloween due to the fact that the clocks roll back at 2:00 a..m. Sunday? Maybe you can, but probably not says Capitol Hill Seattle Blog.

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Blogwatch: Leave Pigs Out of It, Craft Beer Stats, Dinner & A Freaky Jazz Show

Posted Oct. 22 at 10:07 am by Maggie Savarino

A flu by any other name... Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack actually had to make the following public statement that H1N1, or swine flu: "People cannot get this flu from eating pork or pork products. Pork is safe to eat." The pork industry is suffering, as some countries have banned U.S pork products. In related news, CDC's cdc.gov/swineflu page is live. It redirects you to cdc.gov/h1n1flu.

Kate Hopkins of The Accidental Hedonist wraps up some beer industry numbers in a short op ed about America's changing wants and preferences with regards to beer. Big Beer's loss is craft beer's gain.

The Earshot Jazz Festival is picking up steam (kicked off last week), and tonight pianist Matthew Shipp plays the Asian Art Museum with Joe Morris. It will be a night of weirdly awesome jazz. A pre or post show pit stop to Poppy (622 Broadway E.) just might appropriately compliment this performance. Pre-show: Poppy has $5 appetizer thali and nightly drink specials during happy hour (5:00-7:00 p.m. Tue-Thu and Sun). Post show: Just get the date cake.

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Blogwatch: A Night with Chuckanut, Leson's NOLA lessons, Amster Burton's Gourmet Leftovers, Vita's Rad Compilation CD

Posted Oct. 15 at 2:45 pm by Maggie Savarino

​LAST-MINUTE ALERT: Brouwer's Cafe (400 N. 35th St.) is hosting a party for Chuckanut Brewery tonight to celebrate its big win at the Great American Beer Festival (uh, a little award called Small Brewery of the Year). If you haven't tried these beers, this is your chance to sample through the array of classic, German, and European-style lager beers, which I can't talk up enough.

Nancy Leson of the Times was in New Orleans recently for the American Food Journalists conference and was introduced to the loveliness that is Poppy Tooker. She wrote two posts about the New Orleans chef: rice calas and gumbo. You think this is a scratch on the back to thank Nancy for referring to me in her blog earlier this week? Nope, just some good information from the maven.

Matthew Amster-Burton has a leftover Gourmet (R.I.P.) piece on his blog, Roots & Grubs, about nam prik pow.

Caffe Vita just dropped the lineup for its GIVE Seattle compilation, out November 17. One hundred percent of the proceeds will go to Art Corps.

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Blogwatch: Leafy Greens Initiaive, Tom Carr's Bar Intolerance and Goat!

Posted Oct. 8 at 10:40 am by Maggie Savarino

​The Ethicurean has part three in a series of posts on the National Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement, which would require farms selling leafy greens to larger distributors to agree to "safe food" practices. It's more interesting than it sounds and has a nice use of the phrase "slow-release intravenous whiskey drip."

Tom Carr sets the record straight about his hatred of bars, with Caleb Hannan over on our Daily Weekly blog. Yeah, but I now want him to defend his love of Talarico's.

Goat hot pot! Goat hot pot! GastroGnome excites at least five people I know of, including Jonathan Kauffman, with her report on Ben Thanh and its lau de.

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Blogwatch: Make the Fruit Loop, New Low in Musicals, SIzzler Support

Posted Oct. 1 at 2:03 pm by Maggie Savarino

Who doesn't love pictures of a pie contest? Lorna Yee documents the Queen Anne Farmers Market pie contest from last week. Get inspired and then....

Get fruit. Now. Pick it yourself. (Website usefully low-tech, circa 1993)

Contact, the movie, was a cruel enough joke for longtime Sagan fans such as myself. But Contact, the musical? Aye, you cut me to the quick. I fling strange quarks in your general direction.

Help the Fishes photograph every Sizzler in America. A pair of West Coast artists is using a very cool online fundraising scheme to get the travel dollars to finish a very specific and odd photography project, that could be awesome. Have you ever seen the Boring Postcards of America book? Yeah, that kind of awesome.

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Blogwatch: Hooters, Better Food Porn, Bean Enhancement

Posted Sep. 24 at 3:36 pm by Maggie Savarino

​Here's a little pickle report about the new Hooters in South Park. Consider it like fly paper, and don't hate ladies. All the datable men will be the ones left hanging out at Loretta's (8617 14th Ave. S.) up the street.

Make sure to make it to the bottom of this Foodista post about a digital photography session last week with Lou Manna for the best handful of tips to get you shooting better photos tomorrow.

Melissa Allison talks about a new coffee enhancement lounge at Visions Espresso in SODO, with a special meet-and-greet this Friday for the general public and coffee nerds in town for Coffee Fest.

Tune in to Victrola Coffee Roasters this Saturday night for a live smackdown; it's Seattle vs. a contingent of Los Angeles baristas. Pffft... so, who'll be making coffee at the only three worthwhile places in Hell-A that night? No one at the cafe could tell me the exact place for you foam voyeurs to go peep, but they were pretty sure it was the blog or at least sure that you'll be able to get there from it.

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Blogwatch: Pie Off, Fremont Oktoberfest, a Cookbook Not About Jam?

Posted Sep. 17 at 2:02 pm by Maggie Savarino

​Tomorrow is the kickoff of Fremont Oktoberfest, which runs through Sunday and is sponsored by The Simpsons. Apparently, the show chooses several beer festivals around the country that they sponsor, and we're fall's West Coast party. (Say it with me now, "Mmmmm.... beeer.") Strange? Apparently, Seattle has the highest viewing records for the show in the entire nation. I've now counted three things we apparently love more than any other city: The Simpsons, ice cream, and port. We are weird. Look for a plushy Homer to defile, er, take photos with, during Saturday and Sunday's events.

This Sunday at 3:00 p.m., bring your very best pie to Curio Confections (5509 University Way N.E.), or your emptiest stomach. They shall be judged and eaten — the pies, not the stomachs. $5 lets you enter and/or stuff your face. Please EMAIL to let them know if you plan to participate with a pie.

Rebekah Denn has a great writeup on a new kind of cookbook, sort of.. Jam Today: A Diary of Cooking With What You've Got, from the new, Oregon-based Exterminating Angel Press (love, love, love the name). This is not a book about jam. It means jam as in the verb, like jam bands. Okay, I'm game if Ms. Denn likes it. The post has a link to her longer article in the Christian Science Monitor.

One more thing, Eat Me Daily has an awesome, measured yet biting review of the adorably grating Chez Pim's new The Foodie Handbook (she that is the "self-proclaimed queen of the food bloggers"). I talked about the word "mixologist" this week. Don't even get me started about the word "foodie."

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Blogwatch: Your Friendly Neighborhood Edition

Posted Sep. 10 at 7:35 am by Maggie Savarino

​The Queen Anne View blog details a program for harvesting your fruit trees for food banks, shelters, and other programs. A part of Solid Ground's Lettuce Link program, the effort tries to cut down on wasted backyard fruit by not only giving you a list of places that will happily accept it, but also by offering volunteers to help pick it. Anyone with a plum tree out there can breathe a sigh of relief and do a good deed (unless you're Jonathan Kauffman, who guards all of his plums as sacred).

Word is the Wallyhood blog will add a user review feature to the mix. Community calendars and forums make sense, but should a community blog get in the review business? Don't we have enough of that already? Should community blogs stick to cheerleading? Seems ripe for animosity.

The Wallyhood blog is also where we learned that the Phinney Neighborhood Association is sponsoring a giant garage sale day this Saturday, September 12. Click the link for a guide map, or just cruise the hood for signs. Remember the rule of garage sales: You rarely if ever find anything good at a sale that advertises 1.) baby clothes, 2.) a futon or 3.) an aquarium. If you've never been to Picnic (6801 Greenwood Ave. N.), stop in on your rounds for a great selection of wine, cheese, cured meats and other, well, picnic supplies for an afternoon break in the hunting.

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Blogwatch: Mussels & Beer, Join an Eat-In, We Have Free Beer Tonight

Posted Sep. 3 at 3:48 pm by Maggie Savarino

​Seattle Food Geek has a recipe with a very fetching picture of poached mussels that will make you want to march right down to the market for a pound of the bearded buggers.

Keren Brown drops news about Slow Food's eat-in, Time Out for Lunch, to take place around the country on September 7. Kind of a cop-out, don't you think? It being Labor Day and all...

And from our very own Seattle Weekly events team: Get free Trumer Pils at the Last Supper Club during our First Thursday after-party tonight. Also: TACO BAR! How did I not know about this? FOLLOW THE LINK TO RSVP.

Reason #121 to be on Twitter: @draftmag. Today, the Twitter feed has a link to a story about science, beer, and beer bellies. Turns out our — I mean your — beer guts may be incorrectly named.

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Blogwatch: Home Brewing, Gluten Free at the Herbfarm, Chef in the Hat Expands

Posted Aug. 27 at 11:29 am by Maggie Savarino

​This week, Accidental Hedonist has a short video and followup post on a day in the life of a home brewer, which involves a long string of waiting, followed by short bursts of activity, all the while hoping to avoid a big stinky, mess.

Gluten-Free Girl author Shauna James Ahern ate at The Herbfarm for her anniversary and ended up giving them a gift — a lovingly detailed post about the evening, complete with photos. If you ever wanted to know what eating at this restaurant looks like...

Nancy Leson has the scoop on Chef Thierry Rautureau's next project, a casual bistro within spitting distance of Rover's, his 22-year-old haute cuisine restaurant. 'Bout damn time. The chef in the hat drops the whole story today on KUOW's Weekday with Steve Scher.

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Blogwatch: Whole Foods CEO on Healthcare, Chuckanut Kolsch

Posted Aug. 20 at 10:04 am by Maggie Savarino

Mackey on Health Care Reform: This link goes to Whole Foods CEO John Mackey's blog on the company website and has the unedited version of his much discussed op-ed piece for the Wall Street Journal on healthcare in America. While his position shocked some of the people who frequent the grocery chain, I think it raises the bigger issue of people reacting to the subject emotionally and personally. Do your blood pressure a favor, especially if you're uninsured, and don't read the comments.

Surly Gourmand has a review of sentimental U-District favorite Jack's Tapas Cafe (5211 University Way), which is in fact mostly a Chinese restaurant; as usual his review is littered with a lot of glaringly gratuitous swear words (and that's saying something coming from me).

Chuckanut Brewery has a great video of head brewer Josh Pfriem describing Kolsch, one of my favorite, light and refreshingly malty beer styles in the summer. You can find Chuckanut Kolsch on tap every Tuesday night at the brewery in Bellingham, as well as on the roster of its rotating taps.

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Blog Watch: Push for Canning, Pollan's Polemic, Starbucks Getting Indier?

Posted Aug. 13 at 10:10 am by Maggie Savarino

Canning Across America has taken cooking enthusiasts on Twitter by storm, with the efforts of a few local writers, and food business people including author Shauna James Ahern and Rebekah Denn and bloggers like semi-pro lollygagger Seattle Bon Vivant. With all the gorgeous fruit at the market at this moment, and if you've ever wanted to learn how to preserve, this site has a ton of great information as well as the ability to interact with those with tons of know how on the subject.

Kate Hopkins of Accidental Hedonist has a wonderfully defensive, if long, reply to Michael Pollan's piece from a few weeks ago in the New York Times Sunday Magazine about the decline of home cooking amidst the rise of food media. Capitol Hill Seattle Blog notices that Starbucks wants to get all indie on Broadway, in the 700 Broadway building to be exact(next to Kinko's). Be on the lookout for anyone with a measuring tape snapping photos at Vivace...

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Blogwatch: Bites, Pizza, Doughnuts

Posted July 16 at 12:40 pm by Maggie Savarino

Check out the Bite of Seattle Culinary Events for this weekend (July 17-19), especially the lineup of guests chefs and sommeliers for the Bite Cooks! program, an all-day extravaganza of cooking demos that takes place in the Alki Room in the northwest corner of Seattle Center. Emceed by Thierry Rautureau of Rover's, the chef demos will include local luminaries Don Curtiss of Volterra, Erika Burke of Volunteer Park Café, Maria Hines of Tilth, and Daisley Gordon of Campagne. (Link above has the full schedule.)

Three minutes of happiness:

The Culinary Addict, a blog written by a PDX chef, has a post titled "Ten Drug-Induced Moments in or Around the Kitchen" that made me smile.

Brandon Pettit's Delancey is gearing up to serve pizza, and wife Molly Wizenberg, of the blog Orangette, wrote a post about it.

Surly Gourmand felt a calling to review Top Pot Doughnuts, with plenty of bias and malice, natch.

It's also the Vashon Island Strawberry Festival this weekend! (July 17-19)

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Blogwatch: Walla Walla, Beer After Bread, Fish Death

Posted June 25 at 12:15 pm by Maggie Savarino

The Ethicurean has a great review of and musing on the upcoming documentary, The End of the Line. (The Seattle screening date frustratingly hasn't been set yet.) There's also interesting interview with the film's correspondant, Charles Clover online from the Village Voice. Disturbing.

Seattle Wine Blog has a nice couple of posts on Walla Walla wineries, if you're looking for some inspiration for an upcoming vacation/road trip. With so many wineries to visit in that corner of the state, a new perspective and recommendation is always welcome.

Accidental Hedonist has a simple bullet point chart that puts a kink in the "beer came before bread" argument.

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Web Bites: Stinging Nettle Eating, License to Booze

Posted June 19 at 9:53 am by Maggie Savarino

Saturday's Weekend Edition on NPR had a great little story and sound bite from the World Stinging Nettle Eating Championship in Marshwood, England. I was once told by a chef that you shouldn't eat stinging nettles uncooked, and curiosity got the best of me for about five seconds—disgusting. How some can devour yards of the stuff is beyond me.

In the current issue of The Atlantic, Middlebury College history professor John McCardell has a short, smart essay, "Teach Drinking," on why we should let 18 year olds drink. Seeing as how laws as they stand have no effect on either alcohol consumption or abuse, I wholeheartedly agree with every point.

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